Slyksylva : You're very welcome 3
Archer1eye : I tend not to crash, so much... I sometimes get disheartened that my writing is of a much poorer quality than I wish it to be and occasionally real life intrudes so that my writing gets put on the back burner... or when I have a new idea I sometimes move onto that, just to get the ideas 'out'... the worst thing for me was Emi in Randland where I painted myself into a corner :/ I had *other* ideas wanting to get out, but I had no way out of the trap I had fallen into. Thankfully Sharein and Shard came as a 'distraction' that has continued quite well. Maybe, with this chapter and angry mob would potentially be the least of Sharein's worries now.
Chapter 4730th Day of Early Spring 768 n.c
I fair near let out a growl, like some sort of wild beast.
Malkarov looked confused and asked, "what?" While Sister Tera looked at me in shock. Obviously severing wasn't something widely known outside the church, although I gathered that from Father Matias' original reaction.
"How did you?" Sister Tera began then continued, "Did your Mother tell you about that?"
"I told you," I said very coldly to Father Matias, "that I couldn't tell you about where I'd heard about it."
"What's severing?" Malkarov asked Father Matias and then turned to me, "Why can't you say?"
"Sharein," Sister Tera whispered, then touched her hair and looked at me questioningly. I knew her meaning immediately, as she was the only person to know about my swearing of an oath to protect Shard's identity (even if she only knew of the existence of the oath and not who it protected).
I nodded my head in response.
"Father, Malkarov," she spoke up quite sternly, "you shall drop this matter right now."
Father Matias swung around in shock, Malkarov looked rapidly between us.
"It is not a secret to poke and prod as the poking and prodding may cause damage," she said, and looked to me, "you are still in no danger?"
"No Sister," I replied, "quite the contrary."
She nodded and said to Malkarov, "to answer your first question as I shall provide no answers to the second; Severing is what happens to a priest when they violate their God's will. For a priest of Mithras in Carn, it would mean doing something that goes against the First Messages, the instructions from Mithras. If we sacrifice one of our people to save ourselves for instance, Mithras would sever the connection between us and her until such a time as we atoned for our transgression. It can be quite tricky for priests of other gods, I'm given to understanding. A priest of the Askaidian god of Lies for instance, might be severed if they were to tell the truth in such a way as their statement were intended to be believed. Askaidia must be a very interesting place to live."
My sharp intake of breath in shock at Sister Tera's acknowledgement of other gods was horribly audible and I blushed at the attention everybody directed at me.
Sister Tera let out a chuckle, "a bit strange to hear me talk of the other gods when we usually pretend that they don't exist?"
I nodded at her and Father Matias chuckled quietly.
She smiled, "It's not a popular subject to study and some would like to pretend to themselves that there are only Celestine and Mithras. But it can't be escaped; even when Father Matias quotes The Book and it's talk of the eternal fight against Darkness, he's talking about Tenebrae; the Goddess of Darkness."
Father Matias must have caught the widening of my eyes, or some other sign of recognition, "You've heard of Tenebrae, then?"
I nodded, slowly.
"Well then, I would advise most strongly not to mention that name anywhere in public," I nodded when he gave this advice, but he continued with a chilling warning, "the Inquisitors of Light, the sect of Celestine Priests who ruthlessly enforce their god's will do terrible, terrible things to 'root out the corruption of darkness.' We are devotees of Mithras, but our church in Carn is the only religion allowed to be openly practiced in Carn due to a long ago agreement between the King, the High Priest of Mithras and the Inquisitors of Light. Should I not quote verbatim, the battles between Celestine and 'darkness', there is a risk that somebody might report it to an Inquisitor. As Priest of Mithras, nothing much would happen to me, but I would lose the posting at Easthaven and a replacement would be sent out."
"So that's why your sermons are all wrong?" I blurted out before I could fully work through my thoughts, "They are biased by the Priests of Celestine?"
As soon as I said it I berated myself and questioned the wisdom of drinking more than my usual amount of ale.
Father Matias laughed quite loudly, "I suppose from some points of view they are quite wrong. Did you know that an ancient copy of The Book was found a few years back? It was destroyed as a heretical forgery."
"Destroyed?" asked Malkarov, extremely shocked. For someone with such a large collection of books, the destruction of any record must have been anathema.
"Yes," the old priest nodded solemnly, "I spoke to one of the priests who had found it and he disclosed to me that it was different."
"Different?" I asked.
"The First Messages and the earlier Second Messages were different from those recorded in our modern copies of The Book," he replied.
"Can't you just ask Mithras what she said originally?" I asked.
"No," he answered, "Mithras left us to follow her chosen ones, the High Priests. It is said in The Book that long ago she did communicate with her clergy directly, before her appointment of the High Priests to speak in her stead."
"That seems like a very silly way to do things, if only for the reasons we discussed earlier," I replied.
"Earlier?" Malkarov asked.
"The reason we got onto the topic to begin with," Father Matias explained, "Sharein pondered why the High Priest who declared our attractions to be abominations wasn't severed, if they acted against the will of Mithras. The problem is that the High Priest cannot be severed, they are appointed to speak with the voice of Mithras and anything they say is the will of the goddess, even if it isn't."
"That does seem very silly," Malkarov agreed, "does that mean Mithras made a wrong choice in her appointment of a High Priest?"
The older priest merely hummed, but Sister Tera let out a snort, "not just a High Priest in my opinion. Maybe it was just a matter of the best of a bad bunch, but the Earth Mother seemed to have made a few bad selections in the past."
Father Matias let out a chortle, "I've heard your opinions on Holy Father Everon time and time again and I don't disagree, but please don't raise your belief that he was in love with his own mother again."
"But he was!" she exclaimed loudly, "it's so obvious!"
We continued to discuss the variously notorious High Priests for most of the afternoon, with Missus Rose returning to replace our bottles and jugs a few times.
Sister Tera at one point shared some shocking news, shocking to Father Matias at least. Rumour had reached her that the Mother and Brother of the church in Hillvale were 'involved' with each other.
"Mother Sephrenia?" He asked and Sister Tera nodded, wide eyed, "and Brother Makus?"
"Uh huh," she confirmed.
"But he's..." he began and Sister Tera supplied, "twenty five."
"And she's…" he continued and Sister Tera once again supplied, "sixty two."
"Well," he said, musing, "I can't say that I blame her."
This broke Malkarov, who fell out of his chair with laughter.
We all laughed at him and determined that it might be time to leave, while we could all still walk.
We bid farewell to Missus Rose and together walked back over the bridge over the river.
Father Mattias was asking me questions about my studies, although they were asked in such a way as to make Malkarov sound bad in some way. I knew that it was all in jest and the feeling to defend his honour warred inside me against the desire to poke fun at him instead.
As we reached the crest of the bridge, Father Matias mused aloud, "I didn't think that there were any priests of Tenebrae left in Carn."
"There aren't," I responded without thought, "just some cultists somewhere."
I stopped, stock still when I realised what I had said. Malkarov walked into the back of me and we both went down in a heap. I expected something more, but when I extricated my head from Malkarov's sleeve, I saw Father Matias shooeing Sister Tera along ahead of him as they both walked back to the Church. I looked at Malkarov out of the corner of my eye, the wizard was propped up on one elbow, lying sideways on the bridge and looking at me with one eyebrow raised questioningly.
"Is there something you want to tell me?" he asked.
I sighed, 'oooh poo.'
"Yes," I answered aloud, "but nothing I can."
"Okay," he responded simply, "when you can, you can."
"Come," he continued, "let's get back to the tower. Allardrial ought to be popping by soon, I think. He usually avoids visiting on nine days because he doesn't like 'how annoying I get'," he said in a very amusing impression of his other half, "after I've been at drink. This will be a lovely surprise for him."
